I can not forget this read. I refer to it in my head, I think about its stark, vividly limned images. I am so deeply glad Author Cynan wrote it. This is my 2021 Six-Stars-of-Five read.Rating: 5* 6 stars of fiveDon't ever, ever think you're in a dark place again, is the primary message of this novella-cum-prose poem.He is holding his hands in the water, rubbing the blood from them, when the hairs on his arms stand up. The sway briefly, like seaweed in the current. Then lie down again.He looks up....

A man is out fishing in his kayak, loving his life, and enjoying the day. A rogue thunderstorm charges in toward land and he is caught too far from shore to make it back. Thunder and lightning split the air into atomic particles and he knows he’s in trouble. Then lightning strikes.This novelette is a petrifying story as the protagonist struggles with - and against - the ominous and omnipotent power of nature holding him in its grasp. He can’t remember who he is or what he is doing out there – no...

A raw, mesmerising, narrative poem, albeit disguised as prose.A-lone, in a kayak, to scatter his father’s ashes.A communion - with memories, with the elements.Lightning!A transformation in an instant - disconnected from everything, from himself.A battle to survive - to get to safety, to return to “her” and their unborn child... "If you disappear you will grow into a myth for them. You will exist only as absence.If you get back, you will exist as a legend."Image: Calm before the storm. “Catch the...

A man, his name is never mentioned, goes out to sea in his kyak, to scatter his father's ashes. A storm arises unexpectedly, and the man is struck by lightening. His memory now I fragments, survival becomes his focus. A novella that ecapsulates the elemental theme of man versus nature.Written in a very stark, to the point style, we are furnished with only enough to highlight the plight of this man. The visceral descriptions of sea, birds and fish contrast the beauty of his surrounding as he is b...

This is a mere slip of a book, coming in at just under a hundred pages. It can be comfortably read in a single sitting but the unsettling story which lies behind its beautiful cover will not easily be forgotten.A man is at sea in a kayak, intending to scatter his father's ashes, when a storm suddenly breaks and he is struck by lightning. He awakes some time later, partially paralysed and with a fractured memory. Adrift miles from land, he must fight the unbearable pain and use every sailing tric...

4.5 stars.“Cove2 (kəʊv) n. a fellow; a man.”A vivid, short story about a man who sets out in a kayak to scatter his father’s ashes into the ocean. When the man is struck by lightning, we readers are plunged into his condition and his struggle to survive. Instead of trying to analyze this read, I’m going to share a few of the images Cynan Jones etched deep into my mind: a sea-tossed doll, a frying pan, 4 inches of fresh water, a mystical sunfish, a floating metal sign, a swollen belly, a finger t...

Read as slow as I could in an empty room in the fading light. A very serene and intense story.

This is a tiny masterpiece (92 pages with plenty of empty space in them) and possibly the most immediately visceral book I’ve ever read. How on earth did Cynan Jones write this without firsthand experience of being hit by lightning and adrift in the ocean? I cannot imagine how anybody could write this, yet it inspires me as a writer to discover my own depths in a new way.I am so glad that an audio book of this does not exist, and it never should. This is a story and voice that you need to hear r...

"It does not matter who you are. You know what you are physically, and that you're in a kayak somewhere on the ocean. It only matters what you are, right now". As a reader, that is exactly where I am, with this unnamed man trying to survive after being struck by lightning. I have never read anything that so immediately placed me in the mind and body of the narrator as this did so completely. I felt the salt on my skin, the terrible thirst, the terror of my predicament, and tiny rays of hope as I...

Five stars and an immediate jump to my favorites list!In the opening pages of this brilliant short novel, a pregnant woman walking in a field finds the picked over carcass of a homing pigeon that has been attacked by a falcon. “First the burst of feathers; further on, the wing, torn off at the shoulder. It had blown across the field like a sail, the sinews and scraps of it dried translucent in the sun.”She senses that the pigeon was trying to get back home but had been thrown off track, that it

Hauntingly beautiful. A simple serene story, beautifully told. About a man who goes out into the sea to shatter the ashes of his father when a lightingstorm overtakes him and knocks him out. When he recovers conciousness he is severely wounded. He tries to survive and reach land.This is my last book of 2017 i presume ;) Happy 2018 everyone!

Sometimes the smallest packages can deliver the largest jolt. As others have noted, this is an almost poetic novella in which a man in a kayak finds himself adrift after being struck by lightning. With no recall of his name or anything else beyond the urgent need for survival, he connects to his innermost essence. And his reasoning for survival: "If you disappear you will grow into a myth for them. You will exist only as absence. If you get back, you will exist as a legend." If anything, I was r...

It does not matter who are. You know what you are physically, and that you’re in a kayak in the middle of the ocean. It only matter what you are, right now. A man is struck by lightning whilst kayaking, and is left partially paralyzed and only barely clinging to life, adrift on the ocean. Left to the mercy of the elements, and his own thoughts, Cove is about survival, when you literally have nothing left.Cynan Jones is known for his “bare-bone” books. He strips away anything unnecessary, to lea

Every book of his I read further solidifies Cynan Jones' place amongst my favorite authors. There is not one wasted word within the nintey-some pages of this novelette. Sparce, frantic, and raw, Cove demonstrates Jones' skill at toying with tension, pulling the reader along in fits and bursts, much like the push and pull of the ocean waves against our progatonist's kayak.

A spare but haunting novella about a lone man who is struck by lightening while kayaking to cast his fathers ashes on the sea. 4 stars